>> >> "with all due respect" to harvard, tonight we fight fiercely. ♪ happy cyber monday from harvard, or as the locals call it -- harvard. on the show tonight, has obama's economy hit its limits? the president's daughters are still off-limits, and pushing limits. but tis the season. congress is back. will the two parties get along?

john, is deadlock in this lame duck all but guaranteed? my seuss is off. >> that is a good holiday thing. deadlock is all but guaranteed. after the election there was a little bit of getting along, but i do not think it is going to happen. and the immigration thing poison the well on the tax extenders deal. you could see the republicans were just there, and in the immigration thing, the deal blew up. that was a deal that was this close to getting done with bipartisan support. >> the logic and flow points to what you are saying. i think -- >> contrary to logic. >> there has to be a deal on the next couple of weeks.

there has to be a deal on the budget. even though, as you said everybody is headed in another direction. i think the budget stuff will set a series of deals. i think republicans will let democrats confirm a bunch of people, which will show the progress that the president would like. >> i will bet you $100 on the tax breaks. >> when they are in the room doing the budget deals -- not always, but i am telling you, we have seen lame-duck session before. people what to go home for the holidays. they are inclined to make deals. >> in the wake of last week's unrest after the grand jury decision ferguson, prison obama -- president obama had officials meet with him at the white house and he said that there is simmering distrust between to many police departments and communities of color -- that is

a quote. mark, the white house says that president obama will not go to ferguson this week. they are dodging questions on whether he will ever go to ferguson. is it possible that this is all of the unrest and drama from the white house? might this be the extent of their response? >> contrary to what i heard some exceedingly handsome pundit say on "face the nation" yesterday i do not think so. i do not think he should go. the justice department is still looking at civil rights violations in the case. the president, the justice department works for the president. if he goes there he will politicize the thing. he is now a polarizing figure. i think the president is going to do the hard work on this thing. the attorney general is going to do a tour of the country -- he is also polarizing here. i think going to ferguson would be a mistake. >> i think the president should

go to ferguson for all the reasons i said before. the president is uniquely qualified to address the moment, could give an important speech there, expand on things that he's said in the weeks leading up to the verdict, the decision, that is. they are going to ask for funds for body cameras, body cameras are a big deal. there are two separate points. probably there is more than meets the eye to today, but i think he should go to ferguson. >> these are local issues as much as we try to nationalize this story. it is about local police and mayors and the president -- i just do not think he needs to be -- >> we are one country. out of many -- >> he does not need to go. >> very harvard. >> very ivy league for you. it is cyber monday.

for many people, that means shopping for deals online. for stores, that means trying to lure shoppers in. for the president, that means trying to revive a sluggish economy. some sectors are improving like housing and unemployment housing, but one sector that is , still lagging is consumer spending. most people view the holiday shopping so far as a disappointment. not a huge amount of growth there. the question i have and i have wondered this for a while -- is this as good as it is going to get for the obama economy, or could we see growth rate bigger than we have seen for most of his presidency? >> i would like to say that there will be growth in spring but the fact is there is already growth. last week we talked with stephanie ruhle about the fact that gdp numbers are up to 3.9%. that is the best we've had in like a decade.

it is better than the average growth rate in all of the years of obama's presidency. do you think we will see growth above 3.5% of the rest of his presidency? >> i do not know that question. this is a 20 year problem in the american economy. you cannot blame barack obama unless you want to blame every president going back to jimmy carter. >> there are a couple things -- the lack of confidence in washington, things that affect people's confidence, business spending and investment and what is the president's theory based on the economy? what policies will he pursue that will keep us at that level of growth? it would be great if he could get this higher. but the problem -- he is running out of time to put in place the fundamentals -- not just

long-term, but medium-term. >> the president ends his term in office with 3.9%, people will be happy. >> they may be skeptical particularly with consumer spending the way it is right now. >> [indiscernible] make a personal commitment to doing that. ok, the staff member who wrote a facebook post criticizing the obamas' daughters at the turkey pardoning ceremony last week has resigned. the president's children have been considered off-limits for several consecutive presidencies. that was not always the case. people have largely laid off of his daughters, but what happened to this woman, is this the exception that proves the rule? or does this alternately saying?

>> what this woman did was write a facebook post over the line in the view of everyone apologized, took down the post and yet my hunches she did not quit on her own entirely. for someone to be punished that way, a republican congressman, to be punished that way, a staffer, suggest the hard work of the clintons, the bushes, the obamas to put their daughters off-limits has worked. normally someone like that would not resign. >> it reminds me 2012, when there was a comment about malia, i believe, taking a vacation in mexico. the state department said that it was not a safe place to go. he made a bland comment about how she should live up to the president's policy. the administration came down -- >> hard. >> like a 10-ton hammer. they have enforced this rule in the tradition of the last to the

president. it has become the law of the land and i hope it stays that way. >> it is one of the few cases where there is bipartisan agreement and the press have largely cooperated. >> coming up -- the coolest guy in the coolest school was barack obama when he was here. we tracked down his professor at the harvard law school and it turns out that he is a wee bit disappointed in his star pupil. our conversation with him is next. ♪

>> we took little stroll in cambridge down the streets surrounding the harvard yard and somehow we ran into a super prestigious teacher at harvard law school and one of the mentors of barack obama. we started about talking about their time on campus. >> welcome.

>> thanks. >> we should say thank you for welcoming us into your home. we want to talk about barack obama, your former student and research assistant -- is that what you called him? >> he was, he was great. >> what about the way he has conducted himself as president has surprised you? >> he was sufficiently brilliant and in a sufficiently limited role that i could never have predicted what kind of president he would be. i knew certainly he would be remarkable, but how controlling he might be, the sort of people he would surround himself with -- those are things i could not have pretended to know. i had enormous hopes for him -- and when he was elected i thought he was the greatest

thing since sliced bread. he has been great in some respects, disappointing in others. >> i heard you use that expression in a charlie rose interview. "disappointing in others." enumerate those. >> i thought he would be more successful in achieving his goals in civil liberties closing guantanamo, dealing with surveillance programs. i think maybe he found when he became president that it was harder than it seemed, so it was not unexpected nothing that happened would follow the precise trajectory he had in mind, but i obviously had aspirations and hopes. i also believed -- perhaps naïvely -- that being the first african-american president, he would be able to bridge the gap between the races, at least to some extent. i never thought our deep racial divide would be cured by the elixir of having a black president, but i would not have

expected racial relations to be worse now than they were when he became president. it seems to be -- if not worse no better. it is not so much he did not have the ability. >> you have talked about both president obama and chief justice roberts. i am interested in comparing and contrasting their temperaments. you have talked about how president obama might have been better suited to being a supreme court justice. many have talked about how justice roberts is a very political supreme court justice. talk about the temperaments of those two and how the roles fit them. >> it is certainly true that barack obama is an extraordinarily thoughtful and careful person. he weighs and measures the pros and cons of everything almost endlessly.

and in a way, although he is decisive when he comes down one way or another, he is an ideal judge. he listens, absorbs, and does not have deeply embedded preconceptions. he is not particularly ideological. i think in many ways, john roberts is more ideological, more committed to certain ways of looking at the world. i do not think he is a politician in robes. but on the other hand, he has a very clear and crisp worldview and is very determined about seeing the world through the lenses he has ground for himself. i think in many ways, it is a paradox that the more political of the two is john roberts. he is also the more sociable. there is nothing unfriendly about barack obama when you get to know him, but i do not think

he is as deeply engaged in sort of backslapping and making friends, where is it was very clear when he was a brilliant student of mine, that john roberts would offend no one. he was a person who spent time with everyone, made allies across the ideological spectrum. how successful he was at that, i cannot say, because i did not know him that well, but he was a successful politician. >> king versus burwell, the second big test for the affordable care act. how endangered do you think the affordable care act is and how do you think justice roberts will approach this? >> when the chief justice said holding a gun to the state's head and saying your money or your life is a coercive proposition when you have a dollar in your pocket or $500 in the pocket, he was almost riding the script for an opinion that would say we should interpret

this to avoid pressuring the states. >> giving him some ways to vote with the majority, but you would be surprised if he were to go the other way? >> i would not be surprised either way. >> and that would have a cataclysmic impact on the law. >> it would be quite cataclysmic. not necessarily the meltdown of the entire law, but close, and certainly four of the justices would do that. they felt betrayed. some people believe he would like to get back in their good graces. i think his calculus is more subtle. he cares about the long run, history, the meaning of the law. i predicted he would vote before and after the oral argument to uphold the affordable care act.

i do not think he was trying to avoid doing something cataclysmic about point. i think he was doing something that he thought was principled. that would also protect the institution. i think he is going to be pulled in two very different directions here and i am not a betting man. i am not about to bet how he would go. >> was ted cruz your student? >> he was. he always bragged that he would get the one a-plus in my course. >> do you remember that? >> he did not brag it to me. he got an a, a very solid a. >> do you remember him at all? >> he would have an excellent counterpoint. i love that. i love the direct exchange. he was certainly smart. i did not give a lot of a's.

barack obama got an a-plus. >> what did people say about ted cruz? >> i think they thought he of the just be a very influential politician, and that he is. >> [indiscernible] >> it was pretty clear he was very, very far to the right, very conservative. with someone like john roberts it was much less clear where his ideology was. he was obviously conservative, probably less so than people think he is now, but i think even now he is more moderate than some people give him credit for being. >> our thanks to professor laurence tribe. when we come back am a our joke writer called in sick. so we asked the president of the harvard lampoon to fill in. ♪

>> if there is one thing

comedians hate it is being asked to be funny on cue. our next guest is so funny, we do not need to ask. madam president, welcome. so much we can talk about. let's start with the chris rock interview in new york magazine. what caught your eye? >> really anything chris rock says about race relations. he is very, very astute. he is not one of those entertainers or celebrities where they are like, why are they talking about this? i remember dave chapelle had a thing about hurricane katrina and he was like, where is ja rule? what does he think about this? and you go to them and they are totally ago urine. he is probably one of the smartest comedians. >> and he is not down on the president. >> yeah, i think we're all kind

of down as a people. >> he talks about how he did not want to turn into alan king. do you know who he was? >> yes, in a rough sense. >> so that reference went right by you. >> i googled it. i have resources. >> i know one of your favorite things is the white house buying -- vine account. what's this? >> turnip. for what? ♪ >> tell us what is going on in that video of michelle obama and that turnip. >> i do not exactly know. i feel so bad for her because she is a lawyer. she has so many degrees. she is sitting there, a social media intern comes up and says, here is a turnip. i have the so many questions.

how many vegetables is she dancing web, which vegetables? >> there's not a lot of time in general, right? >> that is one of the highlights. you do not need to watch the rest. barack obama says some little things, announcements, boring. >> who can resist a little john reference? and an actual turnip. >> she is dancing with a vegetable. does not get better. >> this congressman's assistant who posted about the obamas' daughters and resigned or was pressured to resign -- what do you think? >> i think going after people's kids in general -- i do not know why people still do that. those people should probably not have social media accounts. i don't think they can handle it. i don't think they know people read it.

>> i will be your twitter friend. >> i am humorist. i have a life. i'm not a public official. it is kind of funny -- i read something where she was arrested as a teenager, too. so for her to be calling them out on looking like they are going to the club -- what are you talking about? >> how do you feel about that turkey pardoning thing? as a national ceremony? >> i did not know the turkey pardoning even happened until this year and i watch the entirety of it and i was so baffled. it implies the turkey did something wrong besides being a turkey we wanted to slaughter. sasha and malia are standing there grimacing because it is this weird big display. i think i would rather see the slaughter, take the hatchet, like that. that would send a message to our

enemies. just slaughtering an animal life on tv. >> probably not bring the daughters to that one. >> yeah, i know. >> the lampoon is still published as a physical magazine. >> yeah, print media. >> why not web-based? >> we have an ipad app and a website, twitter. we are slowly going to the digital age. we feel very strongly about we feel very strongly about publishing the magazine no matter how unprofitable. as long as people keep throwing donations at us, we are going to run into the ground. >> all right, alexis wilkinson thank you for joining us here in your home base. we will be right back. ♪

>> we are only on the two half -- tube half an hour a day, but

we are online 24 hours. >> check it out plus all of the latest political news. right now, "taking stock" is next. veritas.

>> hello, i'm pimm fox and this is what i am taking stock of this first day of december 2014. it is cyber monday, the race to get shoppers to spend, spend spend. will they? as of two hours ago, online sales were up 2% compared with -- 9% compared with last year. so far, retailers seeing record sales. >> the three days of friday, saturday, and sunday were record days of traffic and performance for us, which we were very excited about, and